


In Between

by leah k (blinkiesays)



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-01
Updated: 2006-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blinkiesays/pseuds/leah%20k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I really do dislike this part."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

> December 2006
> 
> Written for ChaosDX in the 2006 [Yuletide](http://yuletidetreasure.org/) Fic Exchange

The motion of the sea was not so much of a gentle rocking as a constant churning interspersed with the occasional sickening lurch. Emma had given up trying to stand on the tilting deck in her remarkably unseaworthy footwear and had taken to lying on the couch in the galley, listening to Steed complain.

"I really do dislike this part."

The notorious smuggler and vicious killer that Steed was currently using as a footrest moaned a little.

"I know."

Somewhere hidden under the couch cushions were thousands of dollars worth of precious gems, which only served to make the couch itself lumpy and uncomfortable.

"I mean, at the end of it all you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere."

Steed's footrest twitched.

"I've noticed."

Emma sighed. At best estimate, it would take another hour for the cavalry and clean-up crews to show up, and since Steed's not-quite-broken nose had bled all over the navigation controls, they were dead in the water.

"And no bloody way to get a decent cup of tea."

Emma laughed at that, and Steed smiled and there was a moment where she forgot about her silly boots and her twisted ankle and the lumpy couch, and then Steed's footrest moaned and twitched at the same time and she said, "Hush, Steed, I do believe he's coming around."

* * *

It wasn't so much the location this time, as the unusual circumstance.

"Have you given a thought to what we're going to do with five hundred dachshunds?"

Steed shuddered, using a handkerchief to wipe the drool off the lapels of his jacket. A few brave dogs were still attempting to bite through his trouser legs, though Emma put better odds on them breaking their teeth on the fabric.

"I hadn't yet, no."

The dog nipping around her ankles, a long-haired purebred sidled with the improbable nickname "Killer," started barking pitifully and looking up at Emma with unnaturally soulful brown eyes.

"I suppose we could put out an advertisement?" She paused, thoughtfully. "I have a sort of a strange fear that some woman will try to make them into a coat."

Steed shook his head, but he smiled in that elusive way of his and tipped his hat, which had becomes sort of a mottled gray-brown color from the mountain of animal hair they had fallen into. Emma suspected she'd be picking tiny brown hairs off of her sweaters for years to come. Her shoes would never be the same.

"I'm not so certain all of London would be able to take them all."

Emma frowned at that, picking up Killer and pointing him so that the full force of his soulful stare would be directed at Steed.

"Perhaps we should keep them."

The look Steed gave her then could have frozen entire oceans, and even Killer's stare was powerless to stop it. Emma laughed, walked towards the phone, at tried to remember the number for Animal Control.

* * *

Some time after the ropes had come off, but before it became apparent that the earthquake had irreparably damaged the foundation and the whole building was about to come down, Emma noticed the skirt.

"Why, Steed. I do think you look quite ravishing in that outfit."

Steed tugged a little at the lace hem of the skirt and blushed, a subtle change in color that would have signified nothing on a lesser man.

"Well, the saleswoman said that lilac brought out my eyes."

Emma smiled as she started rubbing the feeling back into her sore wrists, delicately jumping over the spider web cracks in the concrete.

"I find that my eye is rather more drawn to your shapely calves," she said, with a wink, and smiled in triumph as Steed blushed bright scarlet like a normal human being.

* * *

It took a good deal of time sorting out with the local constabulary that she was not, in fact, a prostitute, she just looked like one.

"I have decided that next time, you get to file all the reports, in triplicate, while wearing fishnets."

Steed quirked an eyebrow at that, looking absolutely impeccable and proper in a three piece suit, while Emma was freezing and uncomfortable in her paint-soaked bustier.

"My dear Mrs. Peel, you know I haven't got the ankles to wear heels. And I'm not sure that's quite the right shade of black leather for my complexion."

Just as she was working her way up to a truly scathing comeback about leather trousers, Steed surprised her by draping his jacket over her shoulders and looping his scarf around her neck.

"Steed?"

At her puzzled look, he shrugged and held the door of the interrogation room open for her to walk through. 

"You looked cold."

Emma smiled, warmed.

* * *

The mission was absolutely remarkable in how ordinary everything gone.

"I still can't believe he just confessed like that."

The clean-up crew was busy collecting evidence, calming the only very slightly disturbed neighbors. Somewhere in the background, the cavalry was taking down the most detailed confession statement Emma had ever heard.

"I still don't understand why he didn't try to run or anything. They always try to run."

Steed never had to take off his jacket, his hat was still perfectly perched on top of his head, and he hadn't even had to dirty his handkerchief.

"I wasn't tied up once."

Emma had been undercover as a librarian the whole time, bundled up in cozy sweaters and comfortable footwear.

"I punched him and then didn't get up again. It was almost..."

Steed had a lost look on his face, one Emma could easily translate.

"Too easy."

Steed nodded, emphatically, sitting down on the park bench next to her. A few boys from the clean-up crew walked by, carrying neatly labeled boxes of unassembled explosives.

"It was really rather..."

Emma smiled, turning towards him and catching his eye.

"Boring."

Steed smiled again, in that enigmatic way of his, and nodded decisively.

"Exactly."

"Well," Emma said, "we can't possibly have that," and kissed him.


End file.
